There are numerous types of games that people play for entertainment, educational, or economic purposes. These games can include physical games (e.g., board games, mechanized slot machines, etc.), computer-controlled games (e.g., video gaming machines, XBOX consoles, etc.), or a games that include both physical elements and computer-controlled elements.
Computer-controlled games generally provide richer experiences to the participants. Such experiences can include coordinated multi-media experience, more challenging games, extended, multi-session gaming, virtual experiences that combine reality with fantasy, faster-than-normal experiences, more immersive experiences, and so forth.
Both physical and computer-controlled games generally involve an attempt by the player to achieve one or more goals. These goals for example can be multi-level and staged goals, in which the player progresses to the next stage or level as previous levels/stages are completed. These goals also can be increasingly more difficult or challenging, can involve the accumulation of points or credits, and/or can include multiple possible goals each with possibly different rewards and associated paths.
The games can also require dexterity or knowledge skills, or a combination of both, in order to achieve a goal. For example, a player may have to navigate virtual geographies, make decisions on courses of action (e.g., amount to wager, path to take, etc.). The decisions made by the player while playing can result in the selection by the game of a different path of execution and the adjustment of goals and/or rewards accordingly.
A game can also involve luck as determined ultimately by some type of random number generator in the gaming device, and/or can involve both skill and luck. A game can also increase in difficulty during the course of playing based on the skill/luck of the player, with the change in required skill level being responsive to continued success by the player in achieving goals from one game level to another. Such increase in game difficulty can be for the purposes of adjusting the game's real or perceived value to the player, “leveling” the playing field (handicapping), achieving parity across multiple players, maintaining certain reward levels (for example maintaining average hold percentages on a gaming machine per policy or regulation), and so forth.
A game can reward the player's accomplishment of goals in points, credits, prizes (such as cash), or some combination thereof, alternatively or additionally to the enjoyment felt by the player in achieving the goal(s). Rewards may be provided only for completely achieving a goal, or prorated for partially achieving a goal. A game can provide multiple goals, each having an associated reward.
Games can involve a single player that plays against the gaming device (such as against a virtual opponent) in order to achieve a goal, as well as involving multiple players that play against or with each other to achieve a goal. Examples of computer-controlled games that can involve single or multiple players include games that operate with a personal terminal or console (e.g., a video slot machine, XBOX, PSP, Nintendo DS, etc), games that are served remotely from a server (e.g., a server-based video slot machine, portal gaming machine, online web game, cable television set top box served by back-end servers, etc.), and/or games that include a mixture of hardware, software, and networking components that can be local or remote to the player.
The above-described and other features of games (e.g., requirements for skill/luck, attempts to achieve goals, rewards for achieving goals, and other aspects of the games and playing thereof) offer players an entertainment experience and/or other value desirable to the players. Players generally select games they wish to play based on their personal preferences of the value(s) that the game provides to them, whether entertainment, economic, social, or otherwise. Thus, the choice of which particular game to play and to continue playing is a highly individualistic choice for each player. What may provide a level of value to one player may not provide the same level of value to another player.
Game and content manufacturers, developers, providers, and suppliers have spent significant effort in creating games that attempt to maximize the value of the games for the player, through richer experiences, higher possibility of economic return (e.g., lower hold percentages on wagering machines), adjusting existing or developing new goals to make the game more mentally or physically challenging, etc. For example, in a wagering game environment (such as a casino), game models, mathematic models, video and cabinet graphics and skins, secondary/bonus games, and other entertainment components have been developed that players seem to enjoy. These development efforts often attempt to maximize the entertainment value in proportion to the economic value, and thus maximize the wagering revenues to the casino or other gaming venue operator.
However, there is limited flexibility that is built into these games to alter their course of play. From the results of the game during the course of playing the game, the game device can calculate the player's skill level and/or luck, and make adjustments to the game accordingly to attempt to maximize the entertainment value for the player. However, determining the entertainment value based on the game play is severely limiting, for instance since there is the underlying assumption that a player wants increased (or decreased) skill requirements and/or luck outcomes. This assumption does not necessarily hold true with certain players and in certain situations. Thus, the gaming device's adjustments to the game, which are based on the game play, amount to rather rough guesswork.